Help Docs

APM Insight Licensing

Site24x7 APM Insight licensing is handled in two different ways - Advanced monitor model and APM host based model. This help doc explains how these licenses works and what they include.

Key terms

Host: A physical machine, virtual machine (VM), or Docker container with a unique IP address.

Application: A web application serving a specific business function.  

Instance: A version of a web application running on a unique host-port combination. Different instances act as copies and can run on different hosts.

Licensing types

Advanced monitor licenses

Each instance of an application is considered an Advanced Monitor, which requires its own license.

APM Insight currently supports instances built on six programming languages:

  • In Java, each JVM is considered an instance.
  • In .NET, each application in the IIS server is considered an instance.
  • In Ruby, each ruby application is considered an instance.
  • In PHP, each PHP server is considered an instance.
  • In Node.js, each application is considered as an instance.
  • In Python, each application is considered an instance.

Host based licenses

Here, each APM host that has one or more instances of the application is the licensing unit. 

Billing for these licenses is based on the number of hosts (not the number of instances running on each host). 

Note

  • This type of licensing is recommended when there are 10 or more instances in a host.
  • With the host-based license, each host monitor can have any number of instances. One host add-on is required for every 25 instances.
    For example, if a host is currently monitoring 25 instances and when you add one more instance to the same host, it will be added. However, the host add-on units used will increase from 1 to 2.

Configure host based licenses

The table below shows the configurations and minimum version required to add a host-based license to your application.

Agent Configuration Minimum version supported
Java Add hostlicense.apply=true in the apminsight.conf file and restart the application. Version 4.7
.NET, .NET Core Add hostlicense.apply=true in the apminsight.conf file and restart the application. Version 4.6
Node.js Add "hostLicense" : true in the apminsightnode.json file and restart the application. Version 2.2
PHP For configuration, refer to this help page. Version 4.1
Python Not supported.  
Ruby Not supported.  
All agent instances can be switched from advanced license to host license from the UI. The table above only applies to turning on the host license via the agent configuration file.

Docker container licensing

To consider Docker containers for host-based licensing, you must first identify the underlying host (Docker host), which can be done using Docker monitoring. When a host-based license is applied to a Docker host, each Docker container on that host will be counted as an instance under the host-based licensing. The number of instances per host and the number of metrics allowed remain the same.

Aspects of licensing

The licensing add-on comes in pack of 5 hosts. Meaning, if you purchase 1 unit of the add-on, you can monitor a maximum of 5 hosts. And, any number of units of such add-ons can be purchased. 

Once a host is configured for host-based licensing, new instances from that host will no longer consume Advanced Monitor licenses.

Users can switch between host-based licensing and Advanced Monitor licensing at any time. (i.e. An account can have a mixture of host-based licenses and Advanced Monitor licenses for APM applications.)

Licensing scenarios

Scenario Physical Machine
10 instances in two hosts You only need one unit of the apm host-based add-on. 

Since each add-on comes with five hosts, you can configure the 2 hosts using a single add-on.
20 instances in six hosts There are 3 licensing options available:
1. Only advanced monitor licensing: Here all 20 instances are monitored through 20 advanced monitors. 

2. Only APM host based licensing: Here, you will need 2 units of APM host based add-on, because, 1 unit of add-on has only 5 hosts in it.

3. A mix of APM host based and advanced monitor licensing: Here, you will need 1 unit of APM host based add-on (which covers 5 hosts) and 'n' advanced monitor license to cover the 'n' instances in the 6th host.
 27 instances in one host and 3 instances in another host When the number of instances in the host exceeds 25, 1 more unit of host-based add-ons is used. Hence, there will be 27 instances on one host, which use 2 units of host add-on and 2 instances on 1 host. So, in this case, 3 units of host-based add-ons will be used.

Metrics collected

Metrics Metrics per instance in Advanced monitor model Metrics per host in host based license model
Apdex metric store size 250 1000
Background metric store size 100 400
Database metric store size 500 2000
Trace metric store size 30 120

Converting Advanced monitor licenses into Host - based licenses

If in case, there are more instances per host and you want to convert the advance monitor license in that host to host based license, kindly contact our support and purchase the APM host based add-on.

After purchasing a host-based license:

  • Log in to your Site24x7 account.
  • Navigate to Home > APM.
  • Click on APM Host License button, provided on the top-right of the menu bar.
  • From the Configure APM Host License page, choose the host(s) you wish to convert and click Switch to APM Host License.
Note

If an APM Insight host-based license is downgraded, all instances that were covered by it will be automatically converted into separate Advanced Monitor licenses. So, make sure you have sufficient advanced monitor licenses, if the instances are to be monitored continuously.

Converting from host-based licenses into Advanced Monitor licenses

Since the number of metrics per host is shared by all the instances and if you feel you want more metrics to be collected per instance, then you may need to convert the host based license into advanced monitor license. Kindly ensure that you have enough advance monitor licensing before starting the conversion.

Follow these steps to convert a host-based license into an Advanced Monitor-based license:

  1. Log in to your Site24x7 account. 
  2. Navigate to Home > APM. 
  3. Click on APM Host License on the right-side corner.
  4. From the Configure Host license page, choose the host(s) you wish to monitor with Advanced Monitor-based licenses.
Note

When you switch a host from host-based to Advanced Monitor-based licensing, instances will be automatically converted to available Advanced Monitor licenses only. The rest of the instances will be suspended at random. 

If you have any questions or concerns, just send an email to [email protected].

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